The Desert Home: The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness

Chapter Forty One.
Besieged in a Tree

“I now believed that we were safe. Both Frank and I experienced that happiness which men feel who have been suddenly snatched from the jaws of death. ‘The peccaries,’ thought we, ‘will soon disperse and go off into the woods, now that their enemy has been destroyed.’ To our consternation, however, we soon found that we were mistaken; for, instead of retiring after they had glutted their vengeance upon the cougar, they again surrounded the tree, looking fiercely up at us, tearing the bark as before, and uttering their wild cries. It was evident they were determined to destroy us if they could. It was a strange way to thank us for delivering over to them their enemy!

“We were upon the lower branches, and they could see us distinctly. We might easily have climbed higher, but that would have served no purpose, as they could not reach us where we were. They could only destroy us by keeping us in the tree, until we might perish by hunger or thirst; and from what I had heard of the nature of these animals, I knew that it was not improbable that they might do this.

“At first I was determined not to fire at them, thinking that after a while their fury might subside, and they would disperse. Frank and I, therefore, climbed a little higher; and concealed ourselves, as well as we could, in the thick tufts of the moss.

“After remaining thus for above two hours, we saw that it was all to no purpose – for the peccaries, although they had become more quiet, still formed a dense circle around the tree, and appeared determined to carry out the siege. Some of them had lain down – intending, no doubt, to take it as coolly and easily as possible – but not one had as yet left the spot.

“I grew impatient. I knew that our people would be uneasy about our long absence. I feared, moreover, that Harry and Cudjo might come in search of us; and they, being on foot and not able to climb quickly enough to a tree, might fall victims to these fierce creatures. I determined, therefore, at length to try what effect a shot or two might have upon the herd.

“I again descended amongst the lowermost branches, to make sure of my aim, and commenced firing. Each time I selected an animal, aiming as nearly as I could for its heart. I fired five times, and at every shot one of the peccaries was seen to bite the dust; but the rest, instead of being frightened by the fearful havoc I was making among them, only trampled over the bodies of their dead companions, grunting more fiercely than ever, and rushing against the trunk with their hoofed feet, as though they would climb up it.

“As I returned to load my rifle for the sixth time, I found to my consternation that I had but one bullet left! This I rammed into the gun, which I again discharged among the peccaries, and another of them lay stretched upon the ground. But all to no purpose was this slaughter – the animals seemed to be quite regardless of death.

“I knew of no other method to drive them away, and I now returned to the upper branches where I had left my companion, and sat down beside him. We could do no more than wait with patience – in hopes that the night might call off our strange besiegers. Although we could hear them below us, still uttering their wild cries, and scratching against the trunk of the tree, we now paid them no more attention, but sat quietly upon our perch, confiding in the hand of Providence to deliver us.

“We had been seated thus but a very short while, when all at once we became conscious that there was a bitter smoke rising around us. At first we had taken it for the smoke which had been produced by the firing of the rifle and which had hung for some time about the tree. Now we knew it could not be that, for it was growing thicker and thicker, and we noticed that it had a smell very different from that of burnt powder. Moreover, it produced a stifling, choking sensation, causing us to cough, and rub our eyes with the pain. On looking downward, I was unable to see either the ground or the peccaries; but I could perceive a thick cloud rising up all around the tree. I could hear the voices of the fierce brutes, loud as ever; but they appeared to be scattering outward, and their cry was different to what it had hitherto been. It now occurred to me that the moss had caught fire from the wadding of my rifle; and this soon proved to be the fact, for the smoke all at at once became illuminated with a bright blaze that seemed to spread almost instantaneously over the surface of the ground. We saw that it did not fully envelope the tree, but burned on that side where we had thrown down large quantities of the moss.

“My companion and I scrambled out on the branches to the opposite side – going as far as we could to avoid the smoke. We feared, all the while, that the hanging mass, or even the tree itself, might catch fire, and force us to leap into the midst of our enemies. Fortunately, however, we had clean stripped those branches that hung directly over the blazing heap; and as yet the flames did not mount high enough to reach the others.

“When we had crawled beyond the blinding smoke, we could distinguish the peccaries, standing in a thick mass at some distance from the tree, and evidently somewhat terrified by the fire. ‘Now,’ thought I, ‘we shall be delivered from them. They will go off far enough to enable us to escape through the smoke;’ and with this intention, I commenced reconnoitring the ground in the direction in which the thick clouds were carried by the wind. I concluded that none of the animals had gone in this direction; and I saw that if we could leap down without being seen, we might make off through the trees. We were about descending upon a lower limb to carry out this purpose, when a sound like the distant yelping of dogs broke upon our ears. It filled us at once with a terrible foreboding. We knew that it must be our own dogs; and we knew that Harry or Cudjo, or perhaps both, would be coming close upon their heels. I knew that the dogs would soon be killed by the herd, and then poor Harry – he would be at once torn in pieces! This was a fearful thought, and Frank and I paused a moment, with palpitating hearts, to listen. Yes, it was the dogs! We could hear them yelping and barking at intervals, and evidently coming nearer. The next moment we could plainly distinguish voices, as of people following upon the track of the dogs. The voices could be no other than those of Harry and Cudjo coming in search of us. I was irresolute how to act. Should I allow them to come on, and while the dogs might keep the peccaries engaged for a moment, shout out and warn them to take to the trees. It then occurred to me that I might leave Frank where he was, and by making a sudden rush through the smoke, get nearer to Harry and Cudjo and give them warning before the peccaries could get up. Fortunately their voices sounded in the right direction, and I might reach them without being pursued at all.

“I did not hesitate a moment after forming this resolve; but, handing my empty rifle to Frank, and drawing my knife, I dropped down among the smoking heaps of half-burnt moss. I ran off the moment my feet touched the ground; and, after going a distance of an hundred yards or so, I came in sight of the dogs, and the next moment of Harry and Cudjo. But at the same instant, on glancing back, I saw the whole herd of the peccaries rushing after me with shrill cries. I had barely time to shout to Harry and Cudjo, and swing myself up to a branch, when the animals were around me. The others, seeing me climb, and also perceiving the cause, made to a tree; and the next moment I had the satisfaction of seeing both of them mount into its branches. The dogs, on the contrary, ran forward to meet the herd, and give them battle. This did not last long, for as soon as they had encountered the sharp teeth of the peccaries they ran howling back to the tree where Harry and Cudjo had taken shelter. Fortunately for the dogs, poor brutes! there were some low branches, to which, by the help of Cudjo, they were able to spring up. Had it not been so, they would soon have suffered the fate of the cougar; for the peccaries, fiercely enraged in their short encounter with them, pursued them hotly, and surrounded the tree into which they had been lucky enough to climb.

“I was now left to myself. From the position I occupied I could not see Harry, Cudjo, or the mastiffs; but I could see the black herd that was around them. I could hear all that passed – the howling of the dogs – the voices of Harry and Cudjo – the vengeful notes of the peccaries, all ringing together in a wild concert. Then I heard the crack of the little rifle, and I saw one of the animals tumble over upon the ground. I heard the shouts of Cudjo, and I could see the blade of his long spear lunging down a intervals among the dark bodies below. I could see that it streamed with blood; and that numbers of the animals were falling to the earth. Again came the crack of Harry’s rifle, again the loud barking of the dogs, and again the shouts of Cudjo, as he stood upon the lowermost branches, and plied his terrible weapon. And thus for some minutes raged the battle, until I could see the ground fairly strewed with black and bleeding forms. Only a few of the peccaries remained upon their feet; and these at length, becoming alarmed by the fearful slaughter of their companions, turned away from the tree, and fled into the thick underwood. It was plain that they were defeated, and would not again molest us; and, feeling confident of this, we all descended from our trees, and made our way to the house as quickly as we could – so as to relieve the anxiety of my wife.

“Although we often afterwards met a few of the peccaries in our hunting excursions – and had the fortune to capture some of their young – they never from that time offered to attack us, but always endeavoured to escape. It is the nature of this animal to fight bravely with an enemy until conquered, when it will in future always run at his approach. In fact, there appeared to be but one herd of them in the valley; and as that had been nearly destroyed, we found them afterwards both scarce and shy.

“Next day we returned, well armed, for our opossum and her young, which in our hurry we had quite forgotten. We found, to our mortification, that the cunning animal had gnawed off her fastenings, and escaped, with her whole brood.”

Chapter Forty Two.
An Adventure with Dusky Wolves

“During that year we raised two crops of corn. Neither one of them required as much as two months to bring it to maturity. When we gathered our fall crop we found that we had twenty times the full of our cart – enough to serve us for a whole year, as well as to feed our animals in the winter.

“Our second year was spent pretty much as the first. We made our sugar in the spring, and planted a large quantity of corn. We added to our stock of pets both deer and antelope; and among other animals we caught an old she-wolf, with a large brood of wolf-puppies at her heels. I need hardly tell you that we were constrained to kill the old one on account of her savage disposition, but the young ones we kept and reared. They grew up quite as tame as our own dogs, with whom they fraternised as if they had been of the same species.

“During the summer and winter we had several adventures in the trapping and killing of wild animals; but one of these adventures was of such a singular and dangerous character, that you may feel interested in its narration.

“It occurred in the dead of winter, when there was snow upon the ground; and, in fact, it was the severest winter we experienced during our sojourn in the valley.

“The lake was frozen over, and the ice was as smooth as glass. Of course, we spent much of our time in skating about over its surface, as it gave us health and a good appetite. Even Cudjo had taken a fancy for this amusement, and was also one of the skaters Frank was fonder of it than any of us, and was, in fact, the best skater in our community.

“One day, however, neither Cudjo nor I had gone out, but only Frank and Harry. The rest of us were busy at some carpenter work within doors. We could hear the merry laugh of the boys, and the ring of their skates, as they scoured over the smooth ice.

“All at once a cry reached our ears which we knew betokened the presence of some danger.

“‘O Robert!’ ejaculated my wife, ‘they have broken through the ice!’

“We all dropped what we held in our hands, and rushed for the door. I seized a rope as I ran, while Cudjo laid hold of his long spear, thinking that that might best help us. This was the work of a moment, and the next we were outside the house. What was our astonishment to see both the boys, away at the farthest end of the lake, still upon their feet, but skating toward us as fast as they could drive! At the same time our eyes rested upon a terrible object. Close behind them upon the ice, and following at full gallop, was a pack of wolves! They were not the small prairie wolves – which either of the boys might have chased with a stick – but of a species known as the ‘great dusky wolf of the Rocky Mountains.’ There were six of them in all. Each of them was twice the size of the prairie wolf; and their long dark bodies, gaunt with hunger, and crested from head to tail with a high bristling mane, gave them a most fearful appearance. They ran with their ears set back, and their jaws apart, so that we could see the red tongues and white teeth.

“We did not halt a moment, but rushed onward for the lake. I flung down the rope, and seized hold of a large rail as I ran, while Cudjo hurried forward, brandishing his spear. Mary, with presence of mind, turned back into the house for my rifle.

“I saw that Harry was foremost; and that the fierce pursuers were fast closing upon Frank. This was strange, for we knew that Frank was by far the best skater. We all called out to him, uttering confused shouts of encouragement. Both were bearing themselves manfully, but Frank was most in danger. The wolves were upon his heels! ‘O God! they will devour him!’ I cried in my agony, expecting the next moment to see him torn down upon the ice. What was my joy at seeing him suddenly wheel, and dart off in a new direction, with a shout of triumph! The wolves, thus nimbly eluded, now kept after Harry – who in turn, became the object of our anxiety. In a moment they were upon him; but he, already warned by his brother, wheeled in a similar manner; while the fierce brutes, carried along by the impetus of their race, swept to a considerable distance upon the ice before they could turn themselves. Their long tails, however, soon enabled them to veer around in the new direction; and they galloped after Harry, who was now the nearest to them. Frank, in the meantime, had again turned, and came sweeping past behind them – uttering loud shouts, as if to tempt them from their pursuit of Harry. They heeded him not, and again he changed his direction; and, as though he was about to skate into their midst, followed the wolves. This time he shaved up close behind them, just at the moment Harry had made his second angle and escaped.

“At this juncture we heard Frank calling out to his brother to make for the shore; while, instead of retreating, he poised himself upon his skates, until Harry had passed; and then dashed off, followed by the whole pack. Another slight turn brought him nearly in our direction.

“There was a large hole broken through the ice close by the shore; and we saw that, unless he turned again, he would skate into it! We thought he was watching the wolves too intently to see it, and we shouted to warn him. Not so: he knew better than we what he was about. When he had reached within a few feet of the hole, he wheeled sharply to the left, and came dashing up to the point where we stood to receive him. The wolves, following in a close clump, and too intent upon their chase to see anything else, went sweeping past the angle; and the next moment plunged into the broken ice!

“Cudjo and I ran shouting forward, and with the heavy rail and long spear commenced dealing death amongst them. It was but a short, though exciting scene. Five of them were speared and drowned; while the sixth succeeded in crawling out upon the ice, and was making off, frightened enough at the cold ducking he had got. I thought he was going to escape us, but at that moment I heard the crack of a rifle from behind; and the wolf tumbled over, howling like a shot hound. On turning around, I saw Harry with my rifle, which Mary had brought down during the encounter, and which she had intrusted to Harry as a better marksman than herself. The wolf was still only wounded, kicking furiously about upon the ice; but Cudjo now ran out, and, after a short struggle, finished the business with his spear.

“That was a day of great excitement in our little community. Frank, who was the hero of the day, although he said nothing, was not a little proud of his skating feat. And well might be, as, but for his manoeuvres, poor Harry would undoubtedly have fallen a prey to the fierce wolves.”

Chapter Forty Three.
Taming the Great Elk

“In the third year our beavers had increased to such numbers, that we saw it was time to thin them off, and commence laying up our store of furs. They had grown so tame that they would take food from our hands. We had no difficulty, therefore, in capturing those we intended to kill, without giving alarm to the others. For this purpose we constructed a sort of penn, or bye-pool, with raised mud banks, near the edge of the lake, and a sluice-gate leading into it. Here we were accustomed to feed the animals; and whenever a quantity of roots of the swamp sassafras was thrown into the pool, a large number of the beavers crowded into it – so that we had nothing else to do but shut down the sluice-gate, and catch them at our leisure. We accomplished all this very quietly; and as none that we trapped were ever allowed to go back and ‘tell the tale,’ and as at all other seasons the trap was open and free, of course the surviving beavers, with all their sagacity, never knew what became of their companions, and did not even appear to suspect us of foul play, but remained tame as ever.

“In our first crop of skins we laid by, at least 450 pounds worth, with more than 50 pounds worth of ‘castoreum.’ In our second year we were enabled to do still better; and the produce of that season we estimate at 1000 pounds. Wanting a place to dry and store our furs, we built a new log-cabin, which is the one we are now living in. The old one became our store-house.

“The third year of our trapping was quite as productive as the second; and so with the fourth and fifth. Each of them yielded, at least, 1000 pounds worth of furs and ‘castoreum;’ so that our old cabin now contains 4500 pounds of property, which we have taken care to keep in good condition. Besides, we estimate our livestock in the dam, which we can trap at any time, at 2500 pounds more; so that, you see, we are worth in all 7000 pounds at this moment. Do you not think, my friends, that we have realised the prediction of my wife, and made a fortune in the Desert?

“As soon as we began to collect these valuable furs, a new train of thought was suggested to us – when and how we should bring them to a market.

“Here was a grand difficulty that stared us in the face. Without a market in which to dispose of them, our furs would be of no more use to us, than a bag of gold would be to a man dying with hunger in the middle of a desert. Although surrounded with plenty for all our wants and necessities, we were still, in a manner, imprisoned in our little valley oasis. We could no more leave it, than the castaway sailor could leave his desert island. With all the animals that were subject to us, none of them were beasts of burden or draught – that is, except Pompo. He was old at the time that these reflections first occurred to us; and when we should be ready to leave our valley in a few years more, poor Pompo would be still older; in fact, barely able to carry himself, let alone a whole family of people, with several thousand beaver-skins to boot.

“Although quite happy where we were – for we were always too much occupied to be otherwise – these thoughts would intrude upon us every now and then, and they gave us a good deal of anxiety.

“As for Mary and myself, I believe we should have been contented to remain where we were, and lay our bones in this lovely, but lonely spot. But we had others to think of – our children. To them we had a duty to perform – the duty of their education. We could not think of bringing them up ignorant of the world; and leaving them to such a wild and wayward fate as would be theirs. These reflections, I have said, at times pressed heavily upon us.

“I proposed to my wife that I should take Pompo, and endeavour to penetrate the settlements of New Mexico – where I could obtain either mules, horses, or oxen. These I should bring back to our valley, and keep them until we required them for carrying us out of the Desert. Mary would not listen to this proposal. She would not consent that we should be separated. ‘We might never,’ said she, ‘see each other again.’ She would not allow me to go.

“Indeed, when I reflected seriously on this matter I saw that it would have been useless for me to make the attempt. Even could I have crossed the Desert in safety, where was the money wherewith to purchase these animals? I had not enough to buy either ox or ass. The people of New Mexico would have laughed at me.

“‘Let us be patient,’ advised my wife. ‘We are happy where we are. When the time arrives, and we are ready to go forth, trust that the hand which brought us here can and will guide us safely back again.’

“With such words of consolation my noble wife always ended our conversation on that subject.

“I looked upon her words as almost prophetic; and so they proved in this case, as on many other occasions.

“One day – it was about the fourth year of our sojourn in the valley – we were talking on this very theme; and Mary, as usual, had just expressed her firm reliance upon the hand of Providence to deliver us from our strange captivity, when our conversation was interrupted by Harry, who came running into the house breathless with haste, and with looks full of triumph.

“‘Papa! mamma!’ cried he; ‘two elks – two young elks – taken in the trap! Cudjo is bringing them on in the cart, – two beautiful young elks, about as big as year-old calves.’

“There was nothing very new or strange in this announcement. We had captured elk in the pit-fall before; and we had several of them in our park – old ones. It was the fact of their being ‘young elk,’ – a sort we had not yet taken – which had put Harry into an unusual state of excitement.

“I thought nothing of it at the moment, but went out along with Mary and the children to have a look at our new pets.

“While Cudjo and the boys were engaged in putting them into the park, all at once I remembered what I had read of, but which had hitherto escaped my memory – that the great American elk is capable of being trained as a beast either of draught or burden.

“I need hardly tell you, my friends, that this thought at once led to a series of reflections. Could these elk be trained to draw a wagon? – to draw us out of the Desert?

“I lost no time in communicating my thoughts to my wife. She, too, had read of this – in fact, in a London menagerie, had seen the elk in harness. The thing, therefore, was practicable. We resolved to use every effort to make it so.

“Let me not weary you, my friends, with details. We set to work to train our young elk. No man knew better than Cudjo how to break a pair of oxen to either plough or cart; and when the elk had grown big, Cudjo yoked them to the plough, and turned up several acres of ground with them. During the winter, too, many a good load of dead-wood did Cudjo make them ‘haul’ up to the wood-pile that supplied our fire. In short, they worked, both in the plough and cart, as gentle as oxen.”